Falsification
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: Modern AU. Erik could not make it to Christine's actual doctoral graduation, so they decide to stage their own, with a little help from their friends.


**A/N: Today is my 5-year fic writing anniversary, so I wrote a Tinder 'verse fic for it. I hope you all enjoy this short piece of fluff! To anyone unfamiliar with the Tinder 'verse, it is a modern Irish AU where Christine and Erik meet as grad students**

* * *

Erik never thought he would one day find himself staging a graduation, but here he is. It's only a month out from the wedding, but it's time to falsify some photographs.

In truth he shouldn't find the whole thing so funny. It was terrible having to miss Christine's _actual _graduation in Coimbra. They would take the photographs over there if they could, for the atmosphere and the realism, but it's best if he doesn't fly yet. He doesn't much like flying anyway. It makes him anxious. There are too many things to go wrong up there, and if anything went wrong _in _him...

He prefers not to think about it.

So here they are in the grounds of Maynooth, the dear alma mater they both share that helped to bring them together, Christine robed in her gown again and him in his best suit (second-best, when the final fitting happens for his wedding suit, and he still needs to bulk up a bit but it's difficult when he tires so easily). The royal blue brings out her eyes, makes them sparkle in the sunlight, and she has her hair curled so that it flows in golden waves down her back.

He is wearing just enough foundation on the good half of his face to hide his lingering paleness, and Christine has re-created the make-up she wore at her real graduation, the subtle green eyeshadow and very very small hint of silver eyeliner.

There is something about her silver eyeliner that makes his mouth dry.

Sometimes he forgets just how beautiful she is, and then it hits him full force again.

If she looks even half as lovely as this at the wedding (and she'll probably be at least twice as lovely; there's been some talk of twisting wildflowers into her hair like a Celtic goddess), he's not sure how he'll survive it.

"You're not feeling weak again are you?" Her voice and the light touch on his arm bring him back to himself and he blinks, smiles down at her and the worried look in her eyes.

He must have come over all dazed looking at her. No wonder she sounds worried. "No, no. I feel fine."

It is clear to see she is still not convinced. "We can do this another day, if you want."

"And waste this one day of summer?" It's a hot day in May, bordering on too hot. If he's not careful the light will give him a migraine even through the hat and sunglasses. There is barely a breeze, insects all chirping in the long grass under the trees, sky a bright clear blue, brighter even than Christine's eyes. Portugal in March could never be as nice as this.

If they're unlucky, the weather will be completely broken by the time of the wedding and they'll have to take all the photographs inside.

If that happens, they should go to the old graveyard and let the pictures be properly gothic in black and white and sepia. Though that seems a bit distasteful. The castle grounds would be better, where she rolled him down the hill on his birthday a couple of years ago. Might be a good back-up plan.

He files it away for later reference.

She smiles again, hand slipping down and squeezing his fingers. "If you're sure."

They turn as one to face Nadir with the camera, still holding hands, Christine with her scroll in its white tube. She has waited until they have this done before getting it framed, and it has pained him every day seeing it still rolled up in her new study in their new house. But today, at last, with these staged photos, (including the one of Uncle Al, wearing Erik's own graduation gown from his doctoral conferring, presenting the scroll — out of its tube — to Christine on the stage in the Aula Maxima, as if he were Professor Meneses in Coimbra. He wore the hat at just enough of an angle to hide his face as Nadir snapped the picture, and has laughed over it ever since. There was no real need to take a falsified conferring picture, after all Lilly snapped the real moment in Portugal, but when they were going to the trouble anyway of taking pictures as if Erik had been there, it seemed like the thing to do. Al and Lilly had gone with Nadir to Portugal as Christine's guests, and Al laughed that he was Erik's proxy, though he's a head shorter and his hair has all turned grey and he's never had to wear a mask. Erik just hopes he looks as good as Al does in twenty-five years. There's no telling how his deformity might distort), after today she can finally get it framed and give it the pride of place it deserves.

Nadir grins at them, and snaps the picture.

And another one for good measure, of Christine cradling the scroll as if it were a child. And of Erik down on one knee, presenting it to her under the arch in the small garden attached to the grounds, as if he is proposing to her again. (Thankfully Nadir does not get John Henry helping him back to his feet. His knees have been particularly upset lately.) And one in front of the statue of John Paul II, and one on the bench under the tree where they first kissed. For good measure, Erik bends down and presses a kiss to Christine's cheek as the shutter clicks. They get one along the river, and one in front of the castle, and one of the whole group of them, he and Christine, and Nadir and John Henry and Kate, and Lilly, and his mother and Bill and Uncle Al, the camera sitting on a stump, timed to go off. If he had been well enough, if he were not still in hospital after the surgery at the time, they would all have flown over to her graduation, every one of them, and it seems only right to gather their whole family and their dearest friends together for her fake second graduation.

They go to dinner together, and John Henry jokes that it's practice for the wedding and Al snorts into his tea. And it's nice, it's lovely, it's one of the best days he's ever had.

And afterwards Nadir takes the best picture of the whole lot, Erik's favourite that he prints on proper glossy paper and frames and keeps on the desk in his study.

Him holding Christine, his face in her hair and her face pressed into his chest, under the fairylights in the deepening dusk, snapped without either of them noticing it.

And twenty years later, Christine researching another book, and Clíodhna and Andriú in the kitchen with their homework, he traces his fingers over the photo, and smiles.

* * *

**A/N: Andriú is pronounced the same as Andrew, and to anyone who has not yet read Unfolding, Clíodhna is pronounced Clee-oh-na.**

**Please review and thank you for reading!**


End file.
